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Episode 6 — To find out what happened to the Robinsons in the 1960s, Eric doesn’t need old records anymore. People alive today tell him the story of the historic moment when the jack hammers and bulldozers arrived. Eric learns what is left of Harry and Clementine Robinson’s lives.

For documents, photos and other source material related to this episode, go to https://www.startribune.com/ghost-of-a-chance-podcast-episode-6-guide/601204960

Transcript

SPEAKERS

Cynthia, Kirsten Delegard, TJ Jones, Eric, Hendon, Larry, Interviewee, Melissa Townsend, South Side Recording, Speaker 1, Suki Dardarian, Greg Donofrio, Ernest Lloyd, Craig

Melissa Townsend  00:06

Previously on Ghost Of A Chance.

 

Interviewee  00:10

I mean, there’s this whole so called Science of the real estate industry, where you have real estate economists developing these models that are saying, Oh yeah, if there’s one black person in the neighborhood, it brings down the property values this amount. I just want to be clear, this was not based on fact in any way. The Negro is not understood, and few are willing to take a little time and learn about it. Living in Minneapolis, you get that certain look, which is a suspicion, who’s that person all about? Harry Robinson dies. Was pioneer citizen. Remains cremated.

 

Melissa Townsend  00:47

And in the 1960s city and state leaders did something that would end up segregating the south side of the city even more. And Clementine Robinson could see it happening right from the front stoop of her little house on the hill.

 

Eric  01:06

You’re listening to ghost of a chance from the Minnesota Star Tribune. This is the story of my search to find out what happened to Harry and Clementine Robinson. I’m Eric Roper.

 

Melissa Townsend  01:17

I’m Melissa Townsend.

 

Eric  01:18

This is Episode Six,

 

Melissa Townsend  01:31

Eric knew that clementines little house in the Old South Side was right on the edge of a freeway. This is interstate, 35 West. We’ll call it I 30 5w, for short. But it wasn’t until he pieced together her life that he realized she was there when it was built in the early 1960s.

 

Eric  02:00

Clementines house is literally one house away from the freeway. So I can imagine her standing on her front stoop, sort of watching homes right nearby getting demolished or moved, you know, one by one, right next to her house to make way for this freeway. Someone I talked to noted the noise from the machinery, and I’m imagining like jackhammers, bulldozers, Wrecking Crew. You know the smell of diesel fumes was everywhere, and you know, there she is.

 

Melissa Townsend  02:28

Eric knew that in the 1950s and 60s, officials put these freeways in places that disrupted or destroyed black communities. A quick internet search showed this happened in New York, Miami, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Oakland, Nashville, Baltimore, Atlanta, Detroit, Montgomery and right across the river from Minneapolis in St Paul, Minnesota, just before the I 30 5w project was started, interstate 94 had cut straight through a black community called rondo. Eric knew about Rondo.

 

Eric  03:05

So Rondo is sort of the most famous black neighborhood in the Twin Cities. It was much more concentrated. It was middle class, very thriving, and it’s famous today in part because the interstate 94 freeway destroyed. It really pretty much right down the middle. I mean, you know, it was, it was a straight shot through Rondo, and Rondo has never been the same.

 

Melissa Townsend  03:35

But I 305w wasn’t built through the corner with all those black owned businesses like the Dreamland cafe and the nakarama. In fact, several years ago, Eric had found a report written by a transportation consultant on the i 30 5w project. His name was George Barton, and it seemed like he was being very careful to protect existing neighborhoods. But then Eric started talking to people. We asked Greg mcmore about I 30 5w when he came into the studio. You might remember Greg from the last episode. His roots in the Old South Side go back for generations. I want to talk a little bit about 35 so do you remember what it looked like before I was a freeway?

 

Craig  04:18

Yeah, what it looked like a neighborhood. Those had African American populations, and those were thriving communities where black folks lived and worked.

 

Melissa Townsend  04:32

In fact, Greg’s grandmother’s house was there. It was demolished to make room for the freeway.

 

Craig  04:38

My cousin remembers when the state of Minnesota came to my grandmother’s house, and that was our house. You know, everybody in our family, at some point, on my dad’s side of the family, we all went through that house, 416, East, 25th Street. And remember when the state came knocked on the door and said, you know, we’re going to buy your piece of property. You. Which basically meant you’ve got to go.

 

Melissa Townsend  05:05

Greg said the freeway had a profound impact on the old South Side Community, and Eric realized that conflicted with what George Barton had written in his report about protecting neighborhoods.

 

Eric  05:18

So in my head, I’m sort of thinking, Okay, well, what happened?

 

Melissa Townsend  05:24

When Eric started looking into it, he came across a dissertation paper written by a man named Ernest Lloyd. So we reached out to him.

 

Ernest Lloyd  05:32

My name is Ernest Lloyd, an African American. I go by Dr Lloyd for the most part.

 

Melissa Townsend  05:38

Dr Lloyd is a transportation policy expert. He spent nearly 40 years working at the Minnesota Department of Transportation, and our conversation was great timing, because Dr Lloyd was in the middle of CO writing a book that talks about the building of I, 30 5w his co author is a man named Greg D’Onofrio. He’s a professor in history and urban planning in Minneapolis.

 

Greg Donofrio  06:03

For the last year or so, Dr Lloyd and I have been working with colleagues on an edited book project called human tolls, public histories and community responses to Twin Cities freeways.

 

Melissa Townsend  06:16

So Dr Lloyd gave us a little history about the building of the freeways.

 

Ernest Lloyd  06:20

The industry highway act of 1956 was the greatest public work project in the history of mankind, rather than aqueduct to Rome. At that time, we even see it from space how big it was.

 

Eric  06:35

Starting in the 1940s federal officials began talking about a national network of freeways. And if you can imagine, at the time, there were no interstates for cars and trucks. And then finally, in 1956 us, President Dwight Eisenhower signed the national interstate and defense Highway Act. It’s a long name, but basically, federal officials said, Hey, states will pay 90% of the cost to build new interstates.

 

Melissa Townsend  07:03

Most city and state officials thought that was a pretty good deal. But it wasn’t as easy as it might sound.

 

Eric  07:10

I found some newspaper clippings where local officials were maybe getting a little frustrated. I mean, everyone wants this super highway, but it has to be six blocks from their homes, you know, and that’s not possible. I mean, this is a city, and six blocks from your home is right next to someone else’s home.

 

Melissa Townsend  07:27

It sounds like a classic case of NIMBY, not in my backyard.

 

Eric  07:32

So there’s a growing awareness in, you know, the early to mid 1950s that this thing is going to take out a big portion of South Minneapolis.

 

Melissa Townsend  07:43

From his research, Eric knew other routes had been considered which would have put the freeway in different parts of the city. Greg Donofrio told us he had heard that too.

 

Greg Donofrio  07:52

Many people you will talk to in the black community in the South Side believe that Lindau Avenue was one of the alternative routes for 30 5w and it was a very early idea that they considered, but it was discounted because it terminated at the northern end on what freeway planners called the bottleneck.

 

Melissa Townsend  08:13

Eric had heard about the bottleneck.

 

Eric  08:15

Now, this bottleneck was famous. I mean, it was a big deal, but you know, it’s also true that this route ran through southwest Minneapolis, and that’s where Clementine used to live, and there’s a chain of lakes, which is really the prime real estate of Minneapolis, and some of the most powerful people in the city live there. So I imagine that you’re going to catch a lot of heat. I mean, we don’t know what conversations they had with people, but I’m sure they were not wild about the idea of this freeway near Lindale Avenue.

 

Melissa Townsend  08:46

Now, given all those articles Eric had found about people not wanting this freeway to run right next to their homes, this made a lot of sense, so state officials began leaning toward that route that would run right next to clementines house.

 

Eric  09:01

So here’s the deal with that route. The core of the old South Side black neighborhood would be on the east side of the freeway, and the white southwest area of the city would be on the west side of the freeway, and it would create a permanent barrier between southwest Minneapolis and the old South Side.

 

Melissa Townsend  09:17

It’s about this time in 1956 that city officials hired that transportation consultant. I mentioned. His name was George Barton, and he was from Evanston, Illinois, which is a suburb of Chicago, and I imagine that this freeway was such a hot issue that local officials wanted to bring in an outside expert to make the call.

 

Eric  09:39

And he was hired to write a report reviewing the options that have been proposed about where to put the freeway through South Minneapolis, and that includes the route that would run right next to clementines house.

 

Melissa Townsend  09:55

In that report, George Barton talked about the freeways impact on downtown. And local businesses taxable property and individual property values. But he never talked about race.

 

Eric  10:10

He focused on neighborhoods. When it comes to the freeway dividing a neighborhood, he said a location which isolates a piece that is too small to become a self sufficient unit is to be avoided. He said it would be a mistake to run the freeway in a place that would destroy an existing neighborhood. So he favored having it run between neighborhoods.

 

Melissa Townsend  10:31

So when it came time to look at that strip of land next to clementines house, we presume he looked for the neighborhoods. But in his report, he said he didn’t have the information from the city that he needed to figure out where the neighborhood boundaries were.

 

Eric  10:45

So he had to give his best guess. And to do that, he had to look at a lot of issues. But in the end, it came down to the area with lower property values. He said that, according to his expertise, low property values along this route are, quote, a clue that this strip of land may be a logical dividing line between communities unquote.

 

Melissa Townsend  11:07

In other words, Barton said those homes next to clementines house weren’t part of a thriving community. They were somewhere in between two different thriving communities. Dr Lloyd said there wasn’t a big public outcry from the old South Side.

 

Ernest Lloyd  11:22

According to the elders that I interviewed for my dissertation, they all are gone now. They had little to no knowledge the highway going to be built in South Side.

 

Melissa Townsend  11:33

Dr Lloyd said the whole process included only one official public meeting.

 

Ernest Lloyd  11:39

And in that one public hearing, another single person in that hearing looked like me. They were all white.

 

Eric  11:51

City officials accepted George Barton’s recommendation, and the decision was made to build interstate 35 west on a route that created a 10 Lane permanent, concrete boundary between the predominantly white neighborhood and the predominantly black neighborhood.

 

Melissa Townsend  12:08

We’ll be right back.

 

Speaker 1  12:15

Dr Ernest Lloyd is a transportation policy expert and. He said there’s one thing that highway officials always said to communities impacted by freeways.

 

Ernest Lloyd  15:06

Highway technician always to say, we’re engineers. We know what best for you. We know what best for you.

 

Melissa Townsend  15:16

But it quickly became clear that the I, 30 5w freeway was not in the best interest of the black residents or the old South Side. When George Parton said that that strip of land with the lower property values must be a dividing line between two communities, in some ways, he wasn’t wrong. It was the area between the white neighborhood and the black neighborhood. But it was also more than that. It was one of the few areas of the city that was actually integrated racially. That strip of land included blocks and blocks of houses where white and black neighbors lived next to each other. Greg Donofrio.

 

Greg Donofrio  15:59

There had been progress that was being made, and racial integration was gradually spreading to the south and to the west. And the construction of 30 5w essentially stopped its spread further west. It made it much harder for black people to move to the west side of 30 5w which which was beginning to happen.

 

Melissa Townsend  16:21

Besides that, it was an important connection point between southwest Minneapolis and the old South Side. People drove through that strip to shop and go to school and to work. The property values were low there because, as we know, decades of discrimination and racist real estate practices had segregated the city, and the homes with the lowest property values were those homes in and around the black community. When officials told those residents that they would need to move to make room for the freeway, Eric and I both thought about the black residents there. Where were they going to go? We know most of the city was closed off to black residents, and on top of that, Eric found news reports where people were complaining that they weren’t being paid a fair price for their homes. In his research, Dr Lloyd talked with a number of people who had to move to make room for the freeway. He said there was a deep sense of alienation.

 

Ernest Lloyd  17:22

Where do I go? What could happen to me and my children? Who cares about us? We pay taxes, but who cares about us?

 

Melissa Townsend  17:37

After learning all this, we had to wonder, was this intentional, with all the decades of discrimination that we knew about, did city and state officials know that this was going to happen, and did they intend for this to happen? We haven’t found any written evidence that gives us a clear answer to those questions, but there are some places in that report where one could argue that George Barton used racially COVID language. For example, in one section of the report, he says, quote, creeping blight attacking older residential communities cannot be stopped as long as their local streets are used by fast moving traffic. Now he may have been talking about traffic congestion snarling the streets of nice neighborhoods, but many scholars, including Greg D’Onofrio, note that the word blight was often used as racially coded language. And if that’s the case, then when Barton says a freeway can stop creeping blight, what he may be saying is that a freeway can stop black people from moving in to a white neighborhood. Was that part of how George Barton described this freeway? What we’re doing is trying to figure out if there’s any racially coded language. It’s a lot like listening for a dog whistle. It’s difficult to discern. But at the end of the day, Dr Lloyd said whether the freeway was put there to segregate the city or not, the black community had no power to stop it.

 

Ernest Lloyd  19:22

Am I in the ear of the governor? Am I in the ear of my city council person? They’re so small to him and prolika Club anyway.

 

Melissa Townsend  19:32

I 35 didn’t destroy the old South Side by going straight down the middle of it. The impact on the neighborhood was more complicated than that.

 

South Side Recording  19:47

Testing, testing. Hello, South Side. We outside. How’s everybody doing today? Okay, we have some fun.

 

Eric  19:54

The young people who grew up on the old South Side in the 50s and 60s, they have. Such a connection to this place that even now, even to this day, they have an annual family reunion. And by family, I mean it includes anyone with roots in the neighborhood. And they call this event south side back in the day.

 

Melissa Townsend  20:13

Back in August of 2024 Eric and I went to South Side back in the day. We wanted to ask people what they remembered about their neighborhood and what impact the freeway had.

 

Eric  20:24

Yeah. So what is your name? Cynthia Hicks, Kelly.

 

Melissa Townsend  20:27

And Cynthia told Eric that she grew up in the Old South Side.

 

Cynthia  20:31

We used to have Mr. Rubin used to be on 33rd and fourth Avenue, and he was from Alabama. So he made sure that all of the foods that we had from the south. He made sure that we could get them on 38th and Fourth Avenue at Rubens grocery store, and everyone knew that’s where you could go get the good collard greens.

 

Melissa Townsend  20:50

I started talking with TJ Jones about his childhood in the Old South Side, and he was beaming with pride when he talked about his years at Central High School.

 

TJ Jones  20:59

We had championship football, basketball, baseball and track teams, so we were the stuff back in the day, I was on a championship football team and a championship track team.

 

Melissa Townsend  21:14

Yes, see what I mean, beaming with pride. But people told us when that section of I, 30 5w was under construction, things began to change. Bernice Tinsley Carter remembered how her school changed after the freeway came through. She was a young girl at Warrington elementary school at the time, all I remember is not being able to do what I used to do. It was so busy a street split us to where the dividing line at that time became the highway. So then you had to go to whatever school was on that side and whatever school was on this side. So your school friends are gone, so your sense of community is also gone again, because that school was your community also so yeah, it was horrible when I told Eric about Vernice, he said he already knew the freeway had had a huge impact on the schools.

 

Eric  22:06

Warrington Elementary School shut down in the mid 1960s and part of the reason for that is that it’s too segregated, so they lose their elementary school.

 

Melissa Townsend  22:15

And 13 years later, a second school in the Old South Side closed.

 

Eric  22:18

Bryan Junior High School, which Prince attended, the musician that closed in 1978.

 

Melissa Townsend  22:24

And then just four years later, the high school closed.

 

Eric  22:28

Central High School, which is like still a point of pride for many people in this neighborhood, closed its doors in 1982 people today still talk about these institutions.

 

Melissa Townsend  22:37

That was the school where TJ Jones was on the championship football and track teams, the anchor institutions for black families were closing. Craig Mcmore.

 

Craig  22:48

305w going through South Minneapolis, Truly, truly, truly, created segregated neighborhoods. I don’t see there being much difference between that and the Berlin Wall, between West Germany and East Germany.

 

Melissa Townsend  23:08

Once that stretch of the freeway opened in 1967 people had a quick route to the growing suburban communities. So over the next couple decades, many families moved from their city neighborhood out to the suburbs.

 

Eric  23:20

We know from Dr Lloyd’s research that the old South Side lost nearly 20% of its population between 1960 and 1970 you know, after the freeway went in.

 

Melissa Townsend  23:30

Greg DOnofrio told us most of the families who left were white.

 

Greg Donofrio  23:34

You know, people, people who were White had had the privilege to move wherever they wanted. Many of them moved to the suburbs, and for them, the free air was a benefit. It enabled them to live in the suburbs and work downtown and commute between the two, and they reaped the benefits of this.

 

Melissa Townsend  23:49

Eric and I spoke with a woman named col niece, Hendon. She grew up in the Old South Side. She was just a young girl when the freeway went in.

 

Hendon  23:57

I just remember having friends that moved to the suburbs, and it meant that, like, we would have sleepovers, how girls do, and instead of going a few blocks to their house to spend the night, you know, I would go out to Golden Valley, or I would go out to Maplewood or, you know, wherever they have moved.

 

Melissa Townsend  24:16

Col niece’s family stayed in the Old South Side, but Greg mcmoore told us, with so much loss, it was hard to maintain the thriving community that they once had.

 

Craig  24:26

And it’s interesting, because even to this very day, you can look at the economic difference between, you know, all the neighborhoods on the west side of the freeway and the neighborhoods on the east side of the freeway.

 

Melissa Townsend  24:40

That transportation consultant George Barton said it was a bad idea to divide neighborhoods so that they were so small they couldn’t survive on their own. But that’s exactly what happened to the old South Side. We’ll be right back.

 

Melissa Townsend  25:05

Eric knew that Clementine was living in that little house right next to the freeway when it was being built, but he found out that she was gone before the freeway was completed. She died in 1965 that’s two years before that section of the freeway opened in the final years of her life, Eric found Clementine was active at her church and with her friends, but according to the local black newspapers, she started to have some health concerns.

 

Eric  25:33

There’s this article from March 1964.

 

Ernest Lloyd  25:36

Mrs. Clementine Robinson is at Mount Sinai with a broken hip, friends found her at home ill Thursday of last week, and she has been hospitalized since.

 

Eric  25:47

And then, in 1965 the Minneapolis spokesman reported that on June 22 Clementine had passed away. I found her death certificate, and it said that she died of a coronary occlusion, and that’s a blockage in the artery. She was 84 years old.

 

Ernest Lloyd  26:04

Funeral Services were held on Friday evening, at 8pm June 25 for Mrs. Clementine Robinson at the Funeral Chapel at 19th and Hennepin with Reverend Noah l Smith, assistant pastor at St Peter’s AME Church officiating Mrs. Robinson was the widow of the late Harry Robinson. She had worked many years as a masseur. She was a member of St Peter’s AME Church, and was a member of the helpers club. Besides her church affiliation, she was a member of elected chapter number three order of the Eastern Star Prince Hall, affiliate. After becoming ill, she had been confined to the Eagles boarding home. She died on Tuesday, June 22 at Mount Sinai Hospital. Survivors are sister Mrs. Matthew Washington, Kansas City, Missouri, and a nephew, Leon brown West Des Moines, Iowa. Internment was in Crystal Lake cemetery.

 

Melissa Townsend  27:04

Clementine was gone. Eric wanted to see the place where she was laid to rest.

 

Eric  27:17

This is Eric Roper. It is May 2, 2023, today. Is Clementine and Harry’s shared birthday of May 2 and Clementine and Harry would have been 142 years old today, and I’m here at Crystal Lake cemetery. Why am I here at Crystal Lake cemetery? Well, this is where Clementine is buried, we’re going to walk out. I have instructions on where they’re buried, and we’re going to.

 

Melissa Townsend  27:47

As we said in the last episode, Eric knew Harry and Clementine had bought adjoining burial plots in this cemetery, but in the end of his life, Harry had decided to be cremated. So in 1964 Clementine had sold Harry’s plot, and Eric found that a woman named Anna B Lewis was buried there.

 

Eric  28:08

All right, we’re going through section 12 at Crystal link cemetery. We’re looking for lot 223, the graves don’t have lot numbers on them. So it’s a little tricky. Let me look at my map.

 

Melissa Townsend  28:25

Eric had told me that finding her headstone was a big deal to him. He had found all these documents and news articles about her, but this was the only physical marker dedicated specifically to her life and her memory.

 

Eric  28:41

I know we’re gonna spot it at any moment. I’m kind of like it’s a little overwhelming. Let’s see. Here’s Anna B Lewis, so this is who she sold her other plot to, and I think that’s Clement. I think Clementine is buried right here, but there’s no Marker. Marker does seem to be missing. Let me take a shot.

 

Melissa Townsend  29:12

Eric found a cemetery attendant to make sure he was in the right place. The attendant didn’t want to be identified in this podcast, but he said, Yeah, according to the records, that unmarked grave is where Clementine is buried.

 

Eric  29:26

Yeah, wow, that’s crazy, yeah. I mean, it’s a lot. I’ve been researching Clementine for so long. I was hoping for some I mean, it’s fine, you know, but it’s like, it’s a it’s sort of sad in a way, you know, not to have a marker.   It is really sad.

 

Melissa Townsend  29:40

But Eric knew that Clementine wanted a headstone. It was in her will that he found in the county court archives, so he asked the cemetery attendant.

 

Eric  29:49

You know, how often are graves unmarked like that? I mean, for Clementine.

 

Ernest Lloyd  29:52

A lot we have the working class people.

 

Eric  29:57

And is it typically just because there wasn’t enough money? Me or family or something like that, to get a grave grave marker?

 

Ernest Lloyd  30:03

Yeah, I would say so. I would guess so.

 

Melissa Townsend  30:09

After a lifetime of work and struggle and joy and resilience, this trailblazing woman had no marker of her life or her death.  Eric knew that Clementine wanted a headstone because it was in her will. When Eric and I were back in the studio, I asked him what else was in her will. So he pulled it up on his computer.

 

Eric  30:36

Yeah, so she had written this will in 19 six. Let me see 1960 1960 now she didn’t have any children, so there’s no direct descendants to take her things. So she left the bulk of her belongings to her sister Laura in Kansas City. This is like her jewelry, silverware, linen, dishes, household furnishings, rugs, draperies. And then she left $10 to her sister, Lady Bailey, who, by the time of clementines death, was also deceased. And then there’s a little mystery in here, which is so intriguing to me. It says, I give and bequeath to my friend Leola Davis one small diamond ring. And when we look at the relationships, when it’s listed in here, it lists Leola Davis as a stranger, uh, which is, I think, just a technical term, meaning they’re not related.

 

Melissa Townsend  31:30

Eric had spent quite a bit of time imagining who this Leola Davis was and why Clementine may have given her her ring. Over the course of four years, Eric had found a number of people named Leola Davis, but none of those leads ever panned out. Until just before we were finishing this podcast, Eric found someone he thought might be Leola Davis’ brother. His name is Larry Davis, so Eric emailed him, and he asked, Hey, by any chance, did you know a woman named Clementine Robinson? Maybe, when you were a kid living in the Old South side.

 

Eric  32:07

And then Larry sent me this email saying, like, you know, Oh, of course, I remember Mrs. Robinson, and I just, like, nearly fell on the floor. I was like, wow, you know, after like, four and a half years to find somebody who knew who I was talking about, and it had, I mean, he was so young too. I’m kind of surprised that he remembers as much as he does.

 

Melissa Townsend  32:27

This is incredible. It turns out, when Larry was a little boy, he lived right next door to Clementine. So Eric made a plan to meet up with him, test, test, test, all right? He lives right across the river in St Paul.

 

Eric  32:42

As I said, like after four and a half years, you were the first person I ever met who had ever known of Clementine, which blew my mind.

 

Larry  32:51

And I didn’t know that was her name. She was just Mrs. Robinson. You know the lady next door. I know that my mother and father looked out for her. That was just their way. You know, be careful with Mrs. Robin you know, don’t go running up into her yard. I do remember, you know, Hello, Mrs. Robinson, how are you today? I don’t think I ever saw her go down her steps.

 

Melissa Townsend  33:16

Larry told Eric that he didn’t know Clementine very well, but his sisters did.

 

Larry  33:20

I would say Lenora probably knew her the best. Now I do, and I remember myself Lenora going over there a lot, and I know that she used to help her clean. I know that she used to run errands for her and go to the store, which, in those days.

 

Melissa Townsend  33:36

All this time, Eric had been searching for a Leola Davis who was in clementines will, but there was no Leola in the Davis family. And Eric and Larry both figured that it must have been a typo. They must have meant Lenora.

 

Eric  33:51

Maybe you could tell me what you knew, but also what your sister told you about, why this might end up in a will.

 

Larry  33:58

Sure, so now I’m going to go by a lot of what my sister Beverly said, who is alive, and I wish she could be here. So when my sister Lenora used to go over there, she admired Mrs. Robinson’s ring. And I don’t know if that was a ring that she had on, or if she kept on a table or whatever, but she really liked that ring. And according to my sister Beverly, who would go over there with her, sometimes my sister Lenora would marvel at the ring, and Mrs. Robinson says, Well, one day it might be yours. You know, according to my sister Beverly.

 

Eric  34:35

Do we know where the ring ended up? I mean, I know Lenore passed away. Do we have any idea if you ever got the ring.

 

Larry  34:41

No, not at all, and neither does my sister. Yeah, so we moved. What year did you all move? Or approximately we moved in like 1964.

 

Melissa Townsend  34:55

Larry and his family moved out of that house about a year before Clementine died. And. Eric had found Leola Davis, who’s actually Lenora Davis, but where the ring ended up is still a mystery. There was one more thing that Clementine left in her will. It was her house. So I asked Eric, what does the will say about her house.

 

Eric  35:21

She left her house to her nephew Leon Brown. And Leon brown lived in Des Moines, and he had come to the house earlier, like in 1953 or so with his newly adopted son and wife. Now, Leon and his wife passed away in the 1980s but his granddaughter is still alive. She is clementines great grand niece, and her name is Natalie Lampley. She lives in Iowa, and I talked to her, and she didn’t know anything about Clementine or Harry or the house.

 

Melissa Townsend  35:51

Eric spent days trying to figure out what happened to clementines house, and finally he found out it was never passed down to Leon brown or anyone else, and he told me why.

 

Eric  36:02

So the same year that her husband dies, Clementine starts getting $71 a month in old age assistance. So old age assistance, those cash assistance that elderly poor people could qualify for. And it was, it was to pay your daily life bills, and then if you got a medical problem, then it would pay your medical bills. It was a state program that was administered by the counties that was subsidized by the federal government. But there’s a catch. So then they would put a lien on your house in order to sort of recoup the costs of that program when you die, specifically, right? So as soon as the home is sold upon death, then it is recouped. Some people call it a claw back, because, you know, the county and the state are clawing back what they paid.

 

Melissa Townsend  36:53

So when Clementine passed away, the county tallied up how much she had used of the assistance and then seized her assets to pay for it. This was the policy for anyone who was receiving aid because they were low income. Eric found the modern day program that replaced part of clementines old age assistance. It’s Medicaid, and it still has a clawback policy.

 

Eric  37:16

There’s sort of an interesting, almost morality question here, of like, we’re going to have a program is going to have a big safety net for people, but should we then get it back at the end, and it’s still an open question, Is that the way we should be running welfare programs.

 

Melissa Townsend  37:31

So at the end of Clementine Robinson’s life, she had no marker on her grave and nothing to pass down.

 

Eric  37:41

This is almost like the final ledger of what did Harry and clementines lives add up to, monetarily and literally. In her probate document, it says it amounted to zero. I mean, it says the balance of personal property on hand for distribution is listed as nothing.

 

Melissa Townsend  38:01

Eric told me before he knew all the details of Harry and clementines lives, the reporter in him might have looked at that zero and said, well, not much of a story here, but now that zero stands for so much more.

 

Eric  38:19

They are the first generation removed from slavery, and they made great strides here in Minneapolis against pretty tall odds, but it’s clear that for Harry and Clementine, their progress was constantly interrupted by racism, and when you think about that happening, not just to them but to 1000s of black people throughout that time, then You realize that that has shaped the city that we see today.

 

Melissa Townsend  38:44

This was a new realization for Eric. Maybe you could say this is something that Harry and Clementine passed down to him.

 

Eric  38:55

Their lives ended up being a journey for me to understand things that I kind of like, wasn’t really too I’ll just be honest, maybe interested in researching. It was just this was not a topic that was really on my radar. And then, because I love history and I live in their house, I was like, oh my god, this is fascinating. And so suddenly, to me, it was this very important revelation about so many different things and so, you know, that’s what their life has meant to me.

 

Melissa Townsend  39:31

In our conversations with historian Kirsten Delegard, she would often say it didn’t have to be this way.

 

Kirsten Delegard  39:37

How would this story have been different if he had been allowed to go to law school? He would have gone to law school. He would have been in practice. They would have bought a house. It would have been paid off. You know, how would this story have been different if he had been allowed to go to law school?

 

Melissa Townsend  39:52

What if they could have stayed in that house that Eric owns now? What if they could have helped build a tight knit, integrated community here? Her, what would the city look like today, and when George Floyd moved from Houston to Minneapolis in 2014 what would have happened if he had landed in a more welcoming and racially integrated city where more black families over many generations had been able to work side by side with white families to build more opportunities and organizations that could have wrapped their arms around a black man looking for a better life. Would things have turned out differently for him? You can’t change history. Which brings us to the last thing that Greg mcmoore said to us when he came into the studio for that interview.

 

Craig  40:41

You know, I appreciate this kind of work. I think it’s important. My question would be, what now, is this more than a listening piece, or are they 30 minutes while you’re driving on your way someplace? Or what now?

 

Melissa Townsend  41:00

It wasn’t the first time someone had asked us this while we were working on this podcast, Eric and I led community meetings around Minneapolis. Most of the people in those meetings were black, and at the end of one meeting, a man named Bill wells asked us the same thing in perhaps a more pointed way.

 

Larry  41:19

Many of the people in this room, we’ve sat around and had these kind of round table discussions forever, and it’s always about, let’s discover the plight of black folks in our communities. That’s not the point. We need to understand the history, but the important thing is, what are we going to do moving forward? Black folks have had conversation forever. What is the actionable steps that will come from this conversation?

 

Melissa Townsend  41:50

Honestly, when Bill and Greg asked us this question, we were a little unsure how to answer. It’s one of the most pressing questions of our time. What do we do now, when Eric and I talked about it later in the studio, we both agreed, Eric found his connection to this history through Clementine and Harry, and it started to open his eyes. Our hope is that they will help you connect to this history too, and once you know this history, then you and your community can decide what to do.

 

Eric  42:28

I think the responsibility we have is to spend some time understanding this and don’t feel like you have to feel shame for being a white person, but walk through the world with a much better context, and it’s going to give you more empathy. It’s going to give you more understanding.

 

Melissa Townsend  42:47

Now, that’s what Eric thinks, and I think so too, but this Project is a part of the Minnesota Star Tribune. It’s the largest media company in the state of Minnesota, and we’ve seen the way newspapers have often contributed to racial stereotypes and inequality. We’ve also seen the way newspapers have been a megaphone for vulnerable communities and communities under attack. So I wanted to ask one of the leaders in the newsroom, why was this project important for the Star Tribune to undertake, and what do you think is next. Suki Dardarian is the editor and Senior Vice President at the Minnesota Star Tribune who oversaw this project.

 

Suki Dardarian  43:31

Our mission at the Star Tribune is to build a better Minnesota by connecting people ideas and stories that strengthen our communities, that includes shining a light on the successes and the failures in our community, past and present, and providing context to our readers to help them better understand the world around them. The research that we and others have done to elevate the story of Harry and Clementine Robinson is valuable not just because it’s a retelling of a story that few people knew about. It’s valuable because it provides a window through which we can view their lives, their neighborhood, their city, and in doing so, it gives us that context we need to understand and build a stronger community today, we’ve learned so much on this journey with Eric, and we want others to share that experience and grow from it as well. We want to encourage conversation throughout the community about what the Robinson story means to us today. So we’ve planned events and produced a discussion guide that people can use in their own small groups. I was thinking you could even turn your book club into a podcast club for a few months.

 

Melissa Townsend  44:48

In Minnesota today, there are racial disparities that are extremely wide in wealth, income, home ownership, educational achievement, and Harry and Clementine story held. Helps us understand why good work has been done over decades to address these problems, and the murder of George Floyd in South Minneapolis fueled some of that effort, but there is more to do.

 

CREDITS  45:29

This is Ghost Of A Chance. Our website is Startribune.com/ghostofachance.  There you can see pictures and documents from the podcast, and you can also sign up to receive news about discussion guides and events.  Our email is ghostofachance@Startribune.com. Get in touch if you have a question or feedback or a tip related to the Robinson story.  We’d also love to know if this story motivated you to do something in your communit so let us know.  You can help pay for this incredible story and others like it with a subscription to the Minnesota Star Tribune. Go to our website Startribune.com.    Ghost Of A Chance is reported by Eric Roper and written and produced by me Melissa Townsend. Our executive producer is Jenni Pinkley. Our editor is MaryJo Webster. Fact checking by Eric Roper and MaryJo Webster. Sound Design by Marcel Malekebu. Our contributing editors are Star Tribune managing editor, Maria Reeve and Star Tribune editor and senior vice president Suki Dardarian. Legal review from Randy Lebedoff. The art for our show comes from Anna Boone and Brock Kaplan. Special thanks to Kyndell Harkness, Zoë Jackson, Laura McCallum, James Eli Shiffer, Nancy Yang, Casey Darnell, Laura Ewan, Tane Danger and members of the local community who served as our advisors.